Azhanti High Lightning is a science-fiction wargame, designed by Frank Chadwick and Marc W. Miller, illustrated by Paul R. Banner, Charmaine Geist, Richard Hentz, and Richard Flory, and published by Game Designers Workshop (GDW) in 1980. The title is the name of the large military starship that provides the setting for close-action combat between individuals on board. Azhanti High Lightning is the fourth Traveller boardgame published by GDW. It was republished in 2004 as part of Far Future Enterprises's (FFE) Traveller: The Classic Games, Games 1-6+. Originally Supplement 5: Lightning Class Cruisers was only available as part of this game, it was republished in 2000 as part of FFE's Traveller Supplements volume. Gameplay The game, designed by Frank Chadwick and Marc Miller, is a combat game set in the Traveller universe, and was developed from Snapshot, a game of starship boarding and room-to-room fighting. It depicts close-action combat between individuals on board the Azhanti High Lightning, a large military starship. Each turn, representing 15 seconds, is subdivided into six phases. In the first phase, players secretly write orders for each counter, each of which has a six points to expend on actions during the remaining five action phases. Combat is divided into hand-to-hand fighting and rifle fire. The game provides six scenarios — violent boarding, stealthy boarding, theft from the holds, salvage, mutiny and escape from the brig — along with suggestions for designing further scenarios. The game comes with a rulebook; fourteen 14" x 22" full-color maps representing the various decks of the ship, with each square representing 1.5 metres; Traveller Supplement 5: Lightning Class Cruisers that supplements the maps; and 240 die-cut counters representing individuals, robots and aliens. Reception In the October 1980 edition of The Space Gamer (Issue No. 32), William A. Barton commented that in spite of its flaws, "Azhanti High Lightning still rates high in quality - far above the releases of a lot of other companies. It stands as a welcome addition to the Traveller family of games and deserves a place on the shelf of any science fiction gamer who enjoys a well-designed game that offers both complexity and playability. Designers Marc Miller and Frank Chadwick deserve a hefty round of applause for this offering. One wonders what they'll come up with next. All I can say is, after Azhanti High Lightning, Traveller game 4 is going to have to be a real